In both parts of Ireland working class families have been put to the pin of their collar in trying to make ends meet, as a cost-of-living crisis – created by an unequal division of wealth and the direction of state resources primarily to the benefit of the business class.
This cost of living crisis has been made worse by the energy crisis, created again by US imperialism’s desperate effort to maintain its fading global hegemony, with war against Russia in Ukraine and against Iran in West Asia.
The Iran war in particular has been a spectacular failure for the US which has been surprised by that state’s ability to stand its ground against the world’s leading military power.
The US’s inability to admit defeat is guaranteed to prolong the energy crisis, and to add to it crises in fertiliser and agriculture, in supply chains and manufacturing.
Meanwhile, neither administration in Dublin or London have any plans to use the resources of the state to protect workers against the effects of the wars. Resources in each case are channelled to business interests instead and the military industrial complex.
Workers can no longer accept the steady deterioration of their standards of living, and the increasingly sclerotic character of state administration. But workers’ needs are kept out of the mainstream debate.
Now is the time to fight to put our interests first and to force the capitalist states in which we live to yield ground. And that can only happen if the organisations of the working class – political parties, trade unions, community organisations – unite to force change and unify the working class as an independent force that fights in its own interests.
In the North political struggle remains subordinated to sectarian differences within our community. This sectarianism damages us all. Because it prevents us putting up a united voice for change, for Westminster to provide the resources necessary to defend our living standards, and for the major political parties to join together to protect workers and map out a social and economic programme to improve our lives.
In the South, the incumbent capitalist government remains unable to develop any strategy, not only to defend workers’ interests but even to use the massive resources currently available to tackle our infrastructural deficits, leaving us with a never-ending housing crisis, with a health service manifestly unfit for purpose, and with workers reeling from blow to blow.
Despite the manifest inability of the capitalist parties – Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and their ‘independent’ backers – to solve the state’s crises, there is no clear electoral majority that will put them out of office.
But that step is vital if we are to have any chance of building a different policy approach. And that in turn depends on the organisational power, strength and unity of the working class to articulate and fight for its demands.
The Presidential election campaign showed what could be done when the Left parties united, despite serious differences, to ensure Catherine Connolly’s emphatic victory. Since then, while there have been tentative agreements on vote transfers between the Left in the recent by-elections there have been no steps to elaborate a broad united Left political, electoral programme or tangible political work to improve the lot of the working class.
We need such a programme if we are to convince the electorate that change is both possible and mapped out. Only a confident mass of people organised along a class-orientated view can deliver a programme and demands that will compel parties to articulate the demands of the working class.
The Irish Communist Party/Páirtí Cumannach Éireann has no illusions about the limits of progressive thinking in the social democratic parties, which seek to modify capitalism rather than overthrow it.
Ireland’s continued enthrallment to the European Union, American Chamber of Commerce and British occupation and partition remain outstanding barriers to any development towards a new nation guided by socialist rules for economic organisation and popular participation in the democratic process.
Without addressing the ‘Home Rule’ of EU membership, partition and facilitation of multinational corporations we cannot move forward to an independent and prosperous country.
Working class communities gave no mandate in the North or South of Ireland for billions to be spent on wars against Russia, Iran, Yemen or Cuba and we will continue to assert the simple principle that the ultimate expression of sovereignty is the right to not participate in the wars that NATO and the EU concoct.
Only a confident, assertive and organised working class in Ireland can confront the asset stripping neoliberalism annihilating our communities and families.
Only a confident, assertive and organised working class can push back against the vultures of Brussels, London and Washington.
Only a confident, assertive and organised working class can realise the century old demands of an independent country that democratically determines its own direction and obtains maximum benefits for its children from its natural resources and industry.
Let the working class raise its voice for independence, sovereignty and neutrality NOW!